Android Marshmallow adoption doubles to 4.6%

Android Marshmallow is finally getting some love. After taking four months to hit 1 percent adoption and following Lollipop finally assuming the Android crown, the latest version of Android was the only one to gain share this past month, according to Google’s Platform Versions page.

Android Marshmallow doubled its adoption share from 2.3 percent to 4.6 percent, passing Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread. While that’s certainly good news, the fact remains that Marshmallow has a long way to go to catch up. The latest version of Android typically takes more than a year to become the most used release, and so far it appears that Marshmallow’s story will be no different.

Here are the changes between March and April:

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow (October 2015): Up 2.3 points to 4.6 percent
• Android 5.0/5.1 Lollipop (November 2014, March 2015): Down 0.3 points to 35.8 percent
• Android 4.4 KitKat (October 2013): Down 0.9 points to 33.4 percent
• Android 4.1/4.2/4.3 Jelly Bean (July 2012, November 2012, and July 2013): Down 1.0 points to 21.3 percent
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (December 2011): Down 0.1 points to 2.2 percent
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread (December 2010): Flat at 2.6 percent
• Android 2.2 Froyo (May 2010): Flat at 0.1 percent

The Platform Versions tool uses data gathered from the Google Play Store app, which requires Android 2.2 and above. This means devices running older versions are not included, nor are devices that don’t have Google Play installed (which includes many Android phones and tablets in China, Amazon’s Fire line, and so on). Also, Android versions that have less than 0.1 percent adoption, such as Android 3.0 Honeycomb, are not listed.

For the sake of comparison, here’s the Android adoption chart for March:

The Android adoption order now stands at: Lollipop in first place, KitKat in second, Jelly Bean in third, Marshmallow in fourth, Gingerbread in fifth, ICS in sixth, and Froyo in last. Marshmallow is unlikely to move up for many more months, and probably won’t take first place before Android N arrives.